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Differences between MP3 and WMA
0 Comments | Posted by Bob in Software Reviews, Tips & Tricks
MP3 is a very popular digital audio coding and lossy compression format. Its full name is Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer III. It abandons some data of PCM audio data that is not important to human auditory system so as to decrease file size to the
maximum extent. There are a lot of technologies that are used in making MP3, including
applying psychoacoustics to make sure which part of audio files can be discarded. MP3 audio
can be compressed according to different bit rate, which provides a range to offset between
data size and sound quality. As a result, it greatly lower data size while the acoustic fidelity of files compressed is not worse than that of originals obviously, to most of users.
MP3 was invented and standardized by a group of engineers of Fraunhofer
Gesellschaft located in Erlangen, Germany in 1991.
The Advantage of MP3
MP3 and WMA are two different kinds of music formats and many converting software can convert audio files of other formats to these two popular ones.
128kbps of MP3 and 64kbps of WMA
128kbps of MP3 and 96kbps of WMA
128kbps of MP3 and 128kbps of WMA
160kbps of MP3 and 128kbps of WMA
192kbps of MP3 and 192kbps of WMA
In terms of the former two ones, the acoustic fidelity of WMA is better than MP3 while
MP3 becomes better than WMA in the condition of the last two kinds of bit rate. But when
it turns to under the third circumstance, there is not big deference between MP3 and WMA.
That is because when the compression rate is above 128k, the quality of WMA do not improve
a bit but MP3 quality is upgraded a lot.
Comparison between MP3 and WMA
According to what Microsoft said that WMA of 64kbps has the same quality as MP3 of 128kbps
when it is compressed by WMP7. However, when used WMP8 for compression, WMA will as good
as MP3 of 128kbps when its bit rate is only at 48kbps. Actually, WMA do not have such effect
though it has advanced technology. We discovered the following things after comparing these
two formats:
1. Under the same data rate, like 128kbps, WMA does better than MP3 in quality;
2. Under low data rate, fidelity of WMA is much higher than that of MP3. When the bit rate is
64kbps, quality of WMA is almost the same as it is when its bit rate is at 128kbps. But things
is totally different in MP3. When a song of WMA format at 32kbps can be heard, MP3 of the same bit rate can’t.
3.MP3 is absolutely a very successful calculating way. It is can be heard when its bit rate
reaches 128kbps and its quality can become great when using VBR compression of bit rate above 128kbps. But the data rate limit of MP3 is 128kbps, if bit rate
is lower than this number, the effect will be decreased a lot.
In a word, WMA mainly improve playback of high-frequency signal under very low data rate. When the
bit rate is higher than 128kbps, it has no advantage over MP3 and its high-frequency distortion is
very serious. But WMA is a best choice for compressing English listening materials.One thing you
should remember in mind is that MP3 of 128kbps is better than WMA of 64kbps and even much better
than 48kbps, for treble part of song played in WMA format has metallic sound–larger distortion.
Uncompressed WMA format is the best, but songs of WMA formats downloaded from internet are
compressed. That is why they sound not as good as MP3. Below 128kbps, WMA and MP3 nearly have no
differences but it takes advantage over MP3 for the file is smaller. However when bit rate is
above 128kbps or larger, MP3 is better than WMA.
There are a lot of arguments about which is better between WMA and MP3. Both of them are lossy
compression encoding formats and have their own merits. Technically, WMA is better than MP3 in
its low bit rate. When bit rate is lower than 128kbps, WMA is the best. The lower bit rate is,
the better of WMA you will feel. And with streaming playing support, WMA is a very popular
format used on the internet. If your computer is tight on disk space and you demand higher sound quality,
WMA is no doubt a best choice. When bit rate is increase to 128k, WMA is the best among all levels of
lossy encoding formats. But when it comes to MP3, high-frequency is obviously lost. It seems that 128k
is a turning point, when the bit rate is upper, the acoustic fidelity does not change a lot. When bit
rate comes to 192kbps, MP3 will become a little better than WMA in quality. So if your computer has
enough capacity and you have higher requirement on audio quality, then you should choose MP3 of high
bit rate (from 192kbps-320kbps). But encoder’s selection is also important.
MP3 is a smaller size file of compression rate of 1:10 or even 1:12 by using audio compression
technology, which can maintain finer acoustic fidelity. WMA is an audio compression format developed
by microsoft, which is later , smaller and better than MP3. The biggest difference between these two
formats is that standard of WMA is made by Microsoft while MP3 is an open criteria without copyright
problem, which makes it more popular than WMA.
At the beginning of 2010, let’s review what great events happened in the software industry in 2009, so that we can keep to the developing thread in 2009 to predict the development in 2010.
Oracle Bought Sun
On April 20 2009, Oracle bought Sun at about $7.4 billion. This was a heavyweight enterprise merger case in the global IT industry of 2009.
Now, this event is still in development and there are continual trace and observation for this news event. Although the American authority has approved this merger case which was expected to be finished in August 2009, this merger is still blocked in the EU.
The main worry the EU has with this case is from the open source database software MySQL which will be acquired together with Sun by Oracle. The open source community is worried about Oracle will affect the development of MySQL after Oracle owns MySQL in the future and impair the competition in database software market.
Although this event happened in 2009, its real impact on the IT industry I’m afraid will begin in 2010. As the result of this merger case clearer in 2010, it will be a great IT event that deserve much attention in 2010.
Some reading for you:
Oracle Acquisition of Sun Makes Perfect Sense
What does the Oracle-Sun News Mean for Enterprise CTOs?
Oracle Sun: Good News, Bad News for Google and Microsoft
Microsoft’s Search Made a Leap Forward
On June 4 2009, Microsoft’s search engine Bing was launched.
In 2009, Microsoft invested much in search engine market embodied in:
1. Launching the search engine Bing
2. Signing the search ads cooperative agreement with Yahoo
The two pieces of news looks like unrelated but in fact both served for Microsoft’s search business.
Bing is a great substitute in the field of search engine core and the ads cooperation with Yahoo is to promote the market share and ads revenue of Bing, which are two strategies prepared for each other.
Indeed, Microsoft’s Bing deserves Google’s fear. Firstly, the performance of Bing is not bad compared with Google; even some innovated features of Bing like image search also worth Google’s tension judging from our observation in the past half year. Secondly, it was showed in a market investigation report that after Bing was launched, Yahoo got converging attack from Google and Bing though Google’s market share was not affected, so Yahoo had to cooperate with Microsoft for the long run.
Some reading for you:
Microsoft Search Marketing Vs Google Search Marketing
It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal
Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing could be regarded as the most loudly slogan in 2009. As the march of time and the development of IT, there are more content to talk about for cloud, but in terms of the basic concept, I really can not find any difference it has from the ASP (Application Service Provider) in ten years ago and the Web services popular a few years ago.
Perhaps, cloud computing is just a buzzword of IT industry and there will be other slogans as time passes by just like the Web 2.0 in a few years ago which is not talked about now but the content which referred to at that time is still evolving.
No matter the past Web 2.0 or the current cloud computing, after trace to the source, what we need to understand are theses questions: What changes does the Internet bring to the personal consumer and the enterprise? How many daily things will we do on Internet (including mobile Internet) in the future? How will the paradigm of IT change from the PC terminal to the Internet? We had these questions when the Internet came in more than a decade ago and so are us now and in the future no matter what the popular slogan is.
Some reading for you:
Smaller firms take a shine to cloud computing
Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud
Google Revealed Chrome OS
In November 2009, Google revealed Chrome OS and will directly confront Microsoft in 2010.
It was definite a great event for the global IT industry that Google released Chrome OS, since it is widely believed that besides Apple, Google is the most capable company in the world to compete with Microsoft, especially in software field.
Certainly, it has brought big anticipation for the IT industry that Google is entering the PC OS market, so there have been constant analyses and rumors for Google. It is reported that the Chrome OS netbook would come into the market in the middle of 2010. However, I would like to forecast that Chrome OS is incapable to compete with Microsoft in terms of a short time for I’m afraid the real product challenge will just begin in 2010 and we should consider the influence of Chrome OS in the long run.
Some reading for you：
What the Hell’s Google Chrome OS
Will Chrome Netbooks Really Be Competitive?
Windows 7 Was Launched
In October 2009, Windows was launched with the help of hundred computer manufacturers.
Two years after the launch of Windows Vista which has been fed up with criticisms, users finally got a decent new choice. From the subsequent report and investigation data, we know Windows 7 do get more popularity than Vista, but there were critics who deemed the good of Win 7 not really very good but just built on the lousy Vista.
According to what Microsoft and PC manufacturers said, the native support for multi-touch of windows 7 will bring innovation for the PC design and application. In 2010 the year for Windows 7 to get into market mainstream, let’s watch to see whether Windows 7 will really be the motivity of the industry innovation.
Some reading for you:
Microsoft Pushes Tablet PCs Windows 7 at CES But Not Mobile
62 Windows 7 Tips, Tricks and Secrets
